"Okay!" Kyouko said, and spread a paper out on the countertop. "Check this out."

"Hmm?" Mystia looked up from the lamprey she'd been dicing. After wiping her hands on a towel, she leaned across the counter, trying her best to read the upside-down text. "What's this?"

"What's this? This is my new set list for our show next week!" Kyouko flipped the paper around and pushed it forward. "Um! I was thinking we could drop the sutra song, and instead we play Shrine Maiden in two bits, and then we squeeze the new song in toward the end..."

"Hmm..." Mystia pulled the paper closer and looked over it. Kyouko's handwriting was shaky, and some of the characters were upside down, backward, or transposed. She'd only started learning to read since joining the temple, and it was a remarkably good attempt for a learner. On the page was written:

SMASHING THINGS
SHRINE MAIDEN (PART 1)
ANGRY FACE
SHOUTING IN THE NIGHT
SPARROW SHOOTS BACK
SHRINE MAIDEN (PART 2)
BORING BORING BORING
MOUNTAIN SONG
EAT THE HUMANS
YOUKAI CRUSHER

Mystia considered this for a short while. It wasn't too different from the set list that they'd used for the last few shows, but... "Do you really think we're ready to play Eat the Humans? It's not like we have much but the chorus."

"The chorus is the most important part! Besides, I was thinking that we could figure out the rest tonight! Your business is slow right now, right?"

Mystia nodded and pushed the paper back. Business was slow lately, she had to admit. "Sure," she said. "As long as no customers show up, okay?"

"Customers? I'll keep an eye out..." Kyouko said. Her ears flattened to her head in concentration as she dug through the bag she'd dropped by the bench, and she pulled out an old ballpoint pen and a crumpled folder. Flipping through the folder, she pulled out a heavily-annotated sheet of lyrics. "Ummm... so, after the first bit, it's kinda dum-dum-de-dum," she said, and tapped out a rhythm on the counter with the pen. "And then it goes right to the chorus. Maybe we could have a shouty part there?"

"A shouty part...? Hmm, I don't know. We have a lot of those in Shrine Maiden already." Actually, Shrine Maiden was best described as fifteen minutes straight of Kyouko shouting about whatever was currently on her mind, while Mystia did her best to accompany it on guitar. Each performance was a unique event that would never quite be reproduced, much to the relief of the audience. "Oh! If we did another verse there, we could bridge into the chorus the first time. That would be nice, don't you think?"

"Another verse? Maybe we could have something in there about when people visit the temple and track dirt all over, and I have to sweep it up, and they won't even say hi when I greet them! Maybe." Kyouko frowned down at the paper. "... what rhymes with 'courtyard'...?"

"A-ah, I'll try to think of something...!" Or, rather, Mystia decided, she'd try thinking of a new verse altogether. She always had needed to handle most of the lyric writing.

Before she could make much progress, a voice interrupted her. "Hey, are you open?" A hand pushed the curtains aside, and Mokou stepped inside, followed by a girl that Mystia had never seen before. "Oh, you are, nice."

"Mmhm!" Mystia took the opportunity to inspect the other new arrival. She looked a bit weird even by Gensokyo standards. Brown hair, glasses, a big black hat, and a billowing cape, covered in weird shapes. "Who's this?"

Mokou's answer was entirely drowned out by the girl's. "I'm Sumireko Usami!" she said, and posed, spreading her cape with one hand and pushing her glasses up her nose with the other. "Supernatural investigator and psychic!"

"Huuuuh."

"Supernatural investigator?" Kyouko said. "What's that?"

"It means that I seek out and study the occult, wherever it may be! But, um, not right now. I'm not here on business. I just want some food."

"Yeah, that," Mokou said, and settled down on the far end of the bench from Kyouko. "Sumi is from the outside world. I've been showin' her around. She's the one who was behind all that commotion a few months ago."

"Huh, I see." Mystia only replied to keep the conversation going. She'd been aware that something had happened, but the details were hazy, apart from a lot of her usual customers seeming more tense than usual. These days, she tried to keep her distance from incidents. Getting involved was a good way to get shot at, and getting shot at was bad for business. Having a recent incident-starter at the stand was still a bit too likely to draw Reimu's ire for comfort, but before she could reconsider, well-worn instincts took over. "Well, welcome! Tonight, lamprey skewers are half-off if you're drinking, and the special is croquettes."

Sumireko was only half paying attention. She seemed much more concerned with inspecting the shop. "Huh..." she said. "This all seems pretty normal."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"When Mokou said we were going to a youkai food stand, I thought it would be, you know." Sumireko raised her hands and wiggled her fingers. Mystia had no idea what this was supposed to represent. "Spooky! A lone light in the middle of unnatural fog or something, and when you get close, an old woman offers you mystery meat and kills you if you refuse! That kind of thing."

"... oh." Mystia frowned as she considered this thought. "That sounds like a terrible business plan, don't you think?"

"I guess," Sumireko conceded, and took a seat next to Mokou, looking disappointed. She adjusted her glasses and squinted at the menu posted on the back wall. "Pretty normal food, too..."

"It's not like I'd take you somewhere that served human or something," Mokou said. "Just give us three skewers each. Sake for me, and a cup of water for the kid."

"Coming right up!" Mystia chirped. Her wings gave a cheery little flick as she started laying the meat out on the grill, and Sumireko leaned forward to peer at her. Mystia tried her best to not pay this any mind, but it grew more difficult as Sumireko reached across the counter and grabbed a wing, rubbing it between her fingertips. That, that forced her to look up from her work. "... what are you doing?"

"I had to make sure they were real!" Sumireko's tone was defensive, but she released the wing and settled back onto the bench. "I've never seen somebody with wings before."

"Well, please don't touch them without asking!" Mystia reached back and fussed over her feathers, not that the touch had actually caused any damage. When she was satisfied, she crouched down to pull two cups from beneath the counter, filled them, and slid them across.

"Thanks," Mokou said, and took a long sip of her sake, followed by a relaxed sigh. "And she's right, Sumi. You shouldn't go around poking youkai. Good way to get your hand bit off."

"Okaaaaay."

With that, the two settled down, and Sumireko didn't seem inclined to start grabbing things again any time soon. Mystia prodded at the meat on the grill, turning it over a few times to ensure it browned evenly. It was routine enough that it let her mind drift back to earlier conversation topics. "Hey, Kyouko?"

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking... In the first verse, what if we dropped the line about shopping and replaced it with something else?"

"Replace it? Huh, maybe. What else rhymes with 'stop,' though?"

"Oh. Um. 'Make our hearts drop'? I guess that doesn't really fit the tone, though."

On the far side of the bench, Sumireko was now watching them intently. Mystia realized that this probably wasn't the best topic to discuss with a human around... but it was too late, and Sumireko used her uncertain glance as an opening to speak up. "Are you writing a song?" she asked.

"We're writing a song!" Kyouko said.

"So, youkai do things like that, too, huh?"

"Uh-huh! We've got a band, and..."

Sumireko scooted closer along the bench, and Kyouko trailed off as she aproached. Sumireko leaned over to glance at the paper. Her eyes slowly widened as she read. "Eat the Humans?"

"It's a working title," Kyouko said, her ears drooping.

"It says that you sing, 'eat the humans,' eight times in a row!"

"It's a political song!" Mystia said, and made a snatch for the paper over the counter. It was soon pulled out of her reach, though, as Mokou grabbed it away from all three of them.

Mokou scanned over the lyrics, mumbling to herself past a cigarette that had found its way to her mouth at some point during the fight. "'They smash our stuff, won't let us shop'...?" she read, in a voice of mounting incredulity.

"We got kicked out of like five stores when we were shopping for instruments!" Kyouko said.

"There aren't even five music stores in the village."

"Some of them were candy stores... Lady Byakuren keeps trying to teach me about money, but I can't do the numbers right."

"Uh-huh. Well, anyway, kid," Mokou offered the paper to Mystia, and turned back to Sumireko. "That's just how youkai are. You're gonna have to get used to it if you're going to spend time over here."

"That's right." Mystia snatched the lyrics up with a huff. "Eating people is perfectly natural."

"I don't even eat people. I just thought it sounded cool..." Kyouko mumbled. Her ears were now at full droop, and even her tail seemed to be doing its best to find its way downward.

"Well. I can let it slide this time, in the name of interspecies diplomacy," Sumireko said. "But! In exchange, I want to hear your song."

Kyouko jolted back upright. "... you want to hear it?"

"Uh-huh."

"You really want to?"

"You heard me! A real live youkai music performance! I couldn't call myself a paranormal investigator if I passed up something like that!"

"We can't just play whenever we want," Mystia said, as she loaded the now-cooked lamprey skewers onto a plate. "That song isn't even done yet. Besides, I need to look after my stand."

"There's nobody else here, though. Oh! And!" Sumireko patted at her outfit, and from a pocket, produced a small, colorful box. She gave it a shake toward Kyouko. "If you do, I'll throw in some outside world candy!"

Kyouko's ears perked up, and her tail gave a shake behind her. She shot Mystia a pleading look. "We were gonna practice soon anyway, right...?"

"Yeah, but not because some human told us to." Mystia turned to Sumireko, crossing her arms over her chest. "Besides, we don't have all our stuff here! I only have my guitar!"

"Huh? Do you have amplifiers and stuff too? That's pretty advanced for youkai."

"No!" Mystia had no idea what an amplifier was, but it sounded dangerous. "Our outfits!"

"It's not the same without the clothes," Kyouko agreed.

Sumireko grabbed a lamprey skewer from the plate and waggled it at the pair. "I'll do my best to pretend you're dressed right."

Mystia glared at her over the skewer, but she could see that this was a fight she wasn't going to win. "Fine," she said. "But we'll need a few minutes to get warmed up and stuff."

"Deal," Sumireko said, and took a victorious chomp of the lamprey.

Mystia crouched down behind the counter, and when she rose a few seconds later, an electric guitar was slung over her neck. The guitar was her pride and joy, one of the few things she could truly call her own. Not even Rinnosuke, who had sold it to her, had been able to tell her much about it. She'd spent days learning how to tune it, and even longer experimenting with it to figure out how to produce all the sounds she wanted. It had taken weeks of work, but she was pretty happy with the result.

Unfortunately, she'd barely heard five other guitars in her life, so she only had a general idea of what one was supposed to sound like. She gave the strings a few appraising plucks, and didn't notice the way that Sumireko flinched in response. "Come on, Kyouko," she said, stepping around the counter. "Let's get this over with."

When the two returned from their impromptu practice almost ten minutes later, Mystia felt a little better about the performance. In the brief time, they'd managed to work out a new verse, she was pretty sure she'd finally gotten the guitar tuned to the exact right spot (she hadn't), and Kyouko had seemed to pick up the lyrics faster than usual.

She'd almost managed to convince herself that she had the situation under control when she noticed that Sumireko had a plastic rectangle pointed at her. "What's that thing?"

"A smartphone!" Sumireko said.

"A smartphone?" Kyouko asked.

"It's an important piece of modern technology." Sumireko pulled her eyes from the screen and gave the two a thumbs up. "I'm going to record your performance. You know, for science! But also for my blog."

"Oh..." Mystia's confidence faltered, and she gave an anxious flick of her wings. "Other people will be able to see it?"

"Mmhm. Try to do a good job!"

Mystia considered this, and decided that an audience was an audience, whether she could see it or not. It meant that the situation demanded a bit more showmanship, though. A brief detour behind the counter produced her sunglasses, and after sliding them on, she already felt better. "In that case!" she said, and gave the guitar an aimless strum. "Me and Kyouko will put on a show that will melt their faces!"

"Melt their faces...!" Kyouko echoed, twice as loud and half as confident.

Mystia turned to face the phone and played a few warmup chords, trying to look as competent as she could. Audience or no, the two had practiced the opening to their shows a few times, and she knew most of the lines by heart. "Listen up!" she shouted at the phone. "We're Choujuu Gigaku, and...!" She dragged her fingers across the strings, producing a sound not unlike a bag full of sick cats, and jabbed a finger at what she was pretty sure was the camera lens. "We're here to make you fear the night!" It had been the band's motto for three weeks now, and Mystia liked the sound of it. Just the right combination of menace and confidence.

"Fear the night!" Kyouko repeated, mirroring Mystia's pose.

"This song's named Eat the Humans! It's about, um, the frustration of a youkai's soul!"

"Frustration!"

Mystia gave a firm nod to herself. This wasn't going so poorly, after all. "Right! Ready, Kyouko?"

"Mmhm!"

"Okay then, here goes! Um, one two three four...!" Mystia took one last deep breath, then dove into an energetic opening chord that would have sounded much more impressive if she'd ever heard about the concept of speakers or an amplifier. "They smash our stuff!"

Leaning forward, Kyouko clenched a fist in front of her mouth, in the manner of somebody who was aware of the concept of microphones, but had never seen one in person. "They smash our stuff!" she bellowed, while Mystia played a guitar riff.

"Won't let us shop!"

"WON'T LET US SHOP!"

"Make up dumb rules!"

"Make up dumb rules!"

"Bug us nonstop!"

"Bug us nonstoooop!"

Mystia had already been playing the guitar as quickly as she could, but now started strumming it with all the force she could manage. They both leaned forward now, shouting into Kyouko's clenched fist. "Eat the humans!" they shouted, and Kyouko repeated a shriek of, "Eat the humans!"

"Eat the humans! Gotta eat some humans!"

And Sumireko and Mokou stared on in something that Mystia hoped was awed silence, or at the very least, rightful fear.

In the end, Sumireko had talked them into playing three songs back to back, with an encore performance of Mountain Song, followed by as much of Shrine Maiden as she could take. Now, Kyouko was bent over the phone, watching raptly as the tiny Mystia onscreen sang, "They taste real good! Scare easy too!"

"Wow..." Kyouko said, and her tail gave a few pleased swishes behind her. "We look so cool!"

"You're definitely something!" Sumireko agreed. With a flick of her finger, she zipped the recording forward a few minutes, to a view of Kyouko bent over double and shouting at her microphone/fist with all the force her little lungs could muster. Sumireko lowered the volume with a few taps of a button, to protect her phone's speakers.

"It would have been nice if we'd been able to put on our music outfits," Mystia said, eyeing the thing from across the counter as she slid her guitar back into its usual storage place beneath the counter. "Don't you think that would have really impressed them?"

"Impressed them? Huh, I guess..." Kyouko said. "Hey, wait! Are lots of people gonna see this?"

"Of course!" Sumireko paused the playback, cutting off Kyouko's shouting voice. With a flick of her wrist, she shifted the phone back into her palm and started idly browsing the recording. "Eighty-nine people read my blog, and I wouldn't think any of them could pass up a real occult performance like this."

"Eighty-nine people...?" Mystia said.

"Well, some of them might be bots, but give or take."

"Is eighty-nine a lot?" Kyouko asked, and stuffed her hands between her thighs to hide the fact that she'd been counting on them.

"Eighty-nine people is four times as many people as our biggest concert," Mystia said, with slowly-dawning amazement. She wasn't sure if she even knew eighty-nine people.

"Yeah, great," Mokou said. She hadn't budged from the same corner of the counter, and had a long-cleaned pile of skewers laying on the plate in front of her. "You know, your food got cold while you were doing all that."

"It doesn't really stick when I eat while astral projecting anyway. I just wanted to investigate youkai cuisine," Sumireko said.

"Your 'investigation' cost eight hundred yen," Mokou grumbled.

"So anyway!" Sumireko turned back to the pair. "I'll let you know if anybody comments on it. If it gets a lot of hits, maybe we can do another sometime?"

"Another?! We've gotta do Youkai Crusher," Kyouko said. "That's our best song!"

"Maybe Echoes in my Heart too," Mystia said thoughtfully. "To show off our, um, mysterious romantic side too!" It was about as close as their songs got to romantic, at least. It only had one guitar solo, and Kyouko was explicitly forbidden from bellowing during it.

"Hey, hey, I'm not filming it now!" Sumireko said. "Save these ideas for next time, okay?"

"Uh-huh." Mokou slid off of the bench and stuffed her hands into her pockets, then glanced up at the sky. "Anyway, Sumi, do you want to get moving? You left your stuff back at my place, and your wake-up thing's soon, isn't it?"

"It's called an alarm clock," Sumireko said, and frowned down at her phone. "But it's getting close, yeah..." She rose to standing, then spun and leveled a finger at the pair. "Okay! I have to go, but practice and figure out a great show for next time, alright? I'll be expecting an occult performance that will scare my shoes off!"

"R-right!" Kyouko squeaked.

"We'll do our best!" Mystia said. She had started wiping the grill clean, but now paused for long enough to give a light wave to the pair. "Thank you for your business!"

Sumireko gave a satisfied nod at the responses, then turned and hurried after the already-retreating Mokou. Kyouko's tail swished softly behind herself. "Do you think lots of people are going to watch it?"

"W-well, I don't know if it counts if it's just a bunch of outside world humans, but it's about time we got some recognition, huh?"

"Maybe we'll become famous!"

"Hmh." Mystia looked up from cleaning and wiped her hands on a rag, watching the pair disappear into the underbrush. "Yeah! Yeah, we just might!"

Note: Despite the fic's title, there isn't gonna be a new Choujuu Gigaku song every chapter! But for now...

Eat the Humans
(Lyrics: Mystia Lorelei and Kyouko Kasodani)

They smash our stuff!
Won't let us shop!
Make up dumb rules!
Bug us nonstop!

(Chorus:)
Eat the humans! (Eat the humans!)
Eat the humans! (Gotta eat some humans!)

Won't let us eat!
Tell us not to shout!
But in the end!
We'll take them out!

In the day, they say no way!
But in the night, they'll run in fright!
(Chorus x2)

In the day, we've gotta run away!
But if they stay out late, put 'em on a plate!
(Chorus x2)

They taste real good!
Scare easy too!
The ones who win!
Will be me and you!

(Chorus x1)

Eat the humans! (x8)